What Would You Do?
by McAwsome
Summary: Professor Keating gives her class a very peculiar assignment.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own How to Get Away With Murder, or not any of the products mentioned in this story.

Tuesday

"We are going to do something a little different today," Annalise Keating told her class in her usual overly dramatic voice. "As lawyers, you'll be expected to go to great lengths to gain the outcomes that you desire. Sometimes you may even have to do unusual, even unpleasant things. Today we will see just how far you are willing to go to get what you want."

The students eyed their professor with awe, and she loved every second of it. She could see that each and every one of them was perched on the edge of their seat eager to see what she had to teach them.

"I have a challenge that often proves both to me as well as yourselves whether or not you have what it takes. Many will choose not to attempt it because the unknown is scary. Many of those who do attempt it will fail because they don't have the nerve. However, each year I have a few students with the discipline to stick it out until the end."

Annalise could see that several of her students were chomping at the bit, eager to prove that he or she would be the one who made it to the end and proved him or herself worthy.

"Over the next two weeks, I'm going to make requests. Some of my requests may be pretty out-there, but they are designed to determine your commitment. If you complete my request, you will move on to the next round. The challenges will become increasingly more difficult as we go along." Annalise noticed that several of her students were furtively taking notes as she talked, "now remember, your participation in this exercise is completely voluntary and I have an alternative assignment for those of you who choose not to."

She went on to describe an argumentative twenty page essay about which five historical court cases in their opinion had the most dramatic impact on America.

"I expect that it will be quite a beast," she explained to her class, "and my challenge will not be a cake walk either. You have until Thursday to choose which assignment you will complete. Just remember; once you choose, there's no going back."

"So class," Annalise continued, pausing for a dramatic effect, "What would you do-,"

She reached into her bag and brought out a small item wrapped in shiny foil.

"-for a Klondike bar?"


	2. Chapter 2

Thursday

As Annalise had predicted, it was revealed that exactly half of the class had chosen to write the essay. Those students were allowed to leave once their names were checked off her list.

The half of the class that remained fidgeted nervously, wondering just what they were getting themselves into.

"Congratulations on choosing to participate," Annalise told her students as they looked on anxiously, "That was actually the first task. I gave you all a scary speech and zero information, and you chose to participate anyway. That tells me that some of you are brave. Next we will weed out those of you who are only doing this because your friends are, as well as those of you who are not paying attention."

She began to walk around her classroom, she first approached a young man who was sleeping in the fifth row then a girl who was playing with her phone. Each started when she shouted his or her name.

"I believe the two of you have an essay to write." Annalise informed the slackers, "I would suggest that you visit the library and get started."

She woke two more students only to discover that they weren't even in her class, but leftovers from a class that had met the night before.

"Alright." She declared, walking back to her desk and lifting a large box she'd placed behind it into view, "I want you all to come to my desk and form a line."

Once the students had done as asked, she presented them with the second challenge. Starting at the front of the line, she began snapping handcuffs on each pair of students. The shocked looks on their faces made her smile, this was why she hadn't explained the challenge before having them line up. She didn't want them to have the opportunity to choose who they got paired up with, that was half the challenge.

"I'm sure some of you have things to do today," Annalise told her class. She could see the range of emotion in the room. Most of the students merely looked confused, while several looked angry and a few looked disgusted. "The person I've attached you to is now your partner for the day. You will have to cooperate if you want to be successful in this challenge. Get creative people."

She also explained that they were to come to her office before 8pm to have the cuffs removed. She also informed them that the door would be locked right at 8pm and anyone who was late would be stuck with his or her partner until office hours on Friday.

Two more students were eliminated from the challenge at this point because they had plans they didn't want company for. One girl was meeting her boyfriend's parents for the first time at lunch, while another had a doctor's appointment. Both were sent away with reminders of the essay, and their partners were cuffed together.

"Good luck," she told her remaining participants, "I hope to see all of you before 8pm."


	3. Chapter 3

Annalise could see by the looks on her students faces as they collected their things that they were not thrilled by the recent developments in this assignment. She could already tell that several of them were rethinking their decision to participate. She smiled to herself as she looked over the pairings she'd created and noticed that several were quite unlikely.

"Good" she thought, that was the entire point of this challenge. She wanted to each of them to experience the feeling of being outside his or her comfort zone. There was also the fact that should these students successfully become lawyers, not all of their clients nor their associates would have likeable personalities, and they would have to be professionally civil regardless.

She'd paired her interns with each other as a safety measure. One had chosen not to attempt the assignment, Professor Keating didn't envy Ms. Pratt and her massive essay at all. In fact, though she couldn't dock any points for the class, the girl's merit had dropped several points in her mind.

The look on Miss Castillo's face when she was attached to Mr. Millstone had been priceless at the very least. Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Walsh had looked at her as though they'd been sentenced to life in prison. There was the possibility that one or more of the groups wouldn't return to her office on time and the pair would have to spend the night in each other's company. They had a case to win, and Annalise wasn't interested in adding anybody else to her collection.

She wasn't particularly interested in any of her other pairings. As a general rule, one of her interns was going to win this competition. This wasn't her first rodeo. The students she selected as her interns during the first week of the semester were typically the best. They were smart, they were ambitious, and their ruthlessness was the subject of legends. Annalise prided herself on her ability to read people and to see potential where others might not suspect it to be.

As she gathered her class materials to head back to her university office, she noticed that after most of the class had left, two pairs still lingered.

"Professor," a bespectacled young man said, moving forward with his partner, a girl wearing a leopard print mini skirt whose makeup had obviously been applied the night before, "Tina and I have decided not to participate after all. Could you un-cuff us please? I'm more suited for research, and frankly I don't know how she got into this program to start with."

The girl, Tina glared at the boy as Annalise produced the key and un-cuffed the pair without question. Two more down. This competition wasn't made for the weak. She turned to the next pair; two girls, one blonde the other a red head, both dressed in power skirt suits.

"Should I un-cuff you as well?"

"No thank you Professor," the blonde replied cheerfully, "Katie and I wanted to get clarification on a few things from the case we covered last week. We were waiting for you to leave for your office so we wouldn't get there before you did."

'Suck ups,' Annalise thought to herself as she motioned for the girls to start asking their questions. She despised suck ups.


	4. Chapter 4

When Annalise finally arrived at her office she found several pairs of students seated on the benches outside. Two of the three had chosen the most unimaginative way to spend their day together. She was going to have to word the challenge differently next time. One pair contained a young man who had scheduled a private meeting during her office hours to discuss how to improve his grades. Appearing despite his partner showed his commitment. She invited this pair into her office and shut the door. It wasn't often that Professor Keating gave extra credit, but counseling students in front of other students wasn't something she did every day either. The young man's partner offered to tutor him as well.

That was another one of her reasons for giving this assignment. It had a gift for bringing the most unlikely students together. Several lasting friendships had planted their seeds during Professor Keating's Klondike Bar project. Specifically during the handcuff challenge.

Throughout the day she received several phone calls from other professors, including her husband, who didn't approve of her teaching methods. Apparently some of her students had exams in their other classes, and their instructors didn't care for the added distraction of the handcuffs. Annalise smiled to herself as she argued with the other professors about the merits of her assignment. She knew that if they found the handcuffs distracting, they really wouldn't like what was coming next.

She reminded each of these professors about the informational email she'd sent out several days prior to beginning the challenge that had explained what she was doing and gave them the opportunity to contact her if it was going to interfere with their classwork. Nobody had replied to the email, so in her opinion, nobody had any business complaining about the way she did business.

Finally the phone stopped ringing and she was able to relax and get some work done. She wondered how her students were doing with the challenge. Each year as a general rule; at least five pairs would be eliminated before the end of her office hours because they couldn't tolerate each other, two pairs would become good friends, one pair would figure out how to remove the cuffs without her key, and one would be arrested with assault charges.

By 4 o'clock, three more pairs had been eliminated.

By the time 8 o'clock drew close, only a quarter of the original class was still participating in the challenge. Most of the class arrived at the office a good twenty minutes before the end of the challenge. Several of them were shocked to see low their numbers had dwindled. Through her cracked door Annalise could hear them discussing how they'd spent the day, most reporting to have escaped unscathed. Several acknowledged a sense of discomfort at having another person so intimately involved in their activities. For example, they all agreed that the act of using the bathroom became ten times harder when you had to perform the activity with another person attached to your wrist. It became more like a complicated choreographed dance than an everyday bodily function.

One of the students was a long distance runner with a routine he performed every day. Both he and his partner complained about the run they had gone for that afternoon, one because of the pace, one because they'd done it at all. Another student had insisted on baking all day, she and her partner arrived covered in flour and giggling. Yet another student played in a metal band, his straight-laced partner simply looked harassed and irritable.

At 7:55pm, Annalise noticed that the dull roar of her students in the hallway had diminished, and she heard the sound of pounding feet racing to beat the clock. She retrieved the key to the handcuffs and opened her office door. Outside she met the remaining participants.

"Congratulations," she told them as she began to remove the cuffs. "I imagine you've each had a very enlightening day. Some of them were probably pleasant, while others were likely not so much. The good news is that you made it back here on time and will be able to continue with the challenge. The bad news is, it's a doozy."

Once she had un-cuffed the last pair of students, she pushed back her office door so that they could see into her office. Inside was large pile of potatoes.

She handed each student a ten pound bag of potatoes and informed the class that their next task was to carry the bag with them everywhere they went until the end of class the following Tuesday.

"That means that for the next five days, this bag of potatoes is your baby. If you go somewhere, it goes with you. If you have a date this weekend, you with take this bag of potatoes. If you go to church this Sunday, you will take this bag of potatoes. If you spend your entire Saturday sitting on your couch watching television, this bag of potatoes will be sitting on your couch watching television with you. If you see another student who is not carrying their bag of potatoes, you are to take a picture and send it to my email do not approach the student. This challenge is designed to test your honor. Remember that I have eyes everywhere. If you go somewhere without this bag of potatoes, I will find out about it."


End file.
